Dan Houser’s influence over the GTA series has been huge, but he’s so far shared only a morsel about what he’s up to in his post-Rockstar Games life at Absurd Ventures. Houser spun this edgy sounding multimedia company up a few years ago before officially revealing its existence in 2023, promising new IPs and universes with stories told in videogames, animated and live action films, podcasts, books, and pretty much every other medium you can think of. Today, Houser has unveiled the Absurdaverse and provided an early look at the characters that inhabit it. He’s also confirmed that details about Absurdaverse live animation projects and an “original story-driven action-comedy adventure game” will arrive soon.
“We are building Absurd Ventures to create new universes and to tell great stories, wherever and however we can,” Houser said when fully revealing his new studio to the world, and his A Better Paradise universe has already gotten underway with a podcast series. American Caper, a new crime fiction universe, will also be launched with a comic book series later this year. But today is all about Absurdaverse, which feels like Houser’s main IP going forward, judging by both its name and the wide array of 20 characters shown in a new piece of art.
The eclectic mix of characters, ranging from skaters, to hippies, to well-dressed fitness watch-wearing folk, to even vikings and dwarves, is reminiscent of the the diverse range of bizarre characters you’d often encounter in the Grand Theft Auto series. But it sounds like the Absurdaverse videogame isn’t going to end up being a sprawling, open-world sandbox game like GTA.
“More information to come this year about the first animation projects and about our original story-driven action-comedy adventure game set in the Absurdaverse, now in development at Absurd Ventures,” Absurd Games says in a short reveal post.
Even though this sounds like a more focused action game, I think it’s safe to assume that a lot of the dark humor and social commentary Houser injected into GTA at Rockstar is going to be present here.
While Absurdaverse’s “first stories” will begin to emerge in 2025, I’m doubtful that will include the game. We’ll likely “meet some new kinds of heroes (and watch them suffer)” in other mediums first.
Still, you will at least get the GTA 6 release date this year – unless Rockstar and Take-Two change their plans. Be sure to also check out our friends over at GTA Db, who have assembled every piece of info there is on GTA 6 into one handy place.
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